7.21.13- Texas Motor Speedway

Team Volt-Tech was at the Texas Motor Speedway at 7:00am. Today's events involved being examined in seven of eight categories. Some areas involved judges carefully examining the mechanics of the car and others involved driving the car. The seven categories included: slalom, suspension, electrical and battery, mechanical, turn radius, tilt, general requirements, and braking. The final category is endurance which will involve driving around the race track.

Before the car could be driven, the hinged canopy had to be screwed to the body. Myles and Chris are shown below completing this task. 

Tyler made  adjustments to the brake lights.

Before driving the car for the judges, everyone had a turn at buckling and unbuckling the harness. Each team member had to drive the car and demonstrate an emergency evacuation that had to to be completed in 15 seconds.

Brittany

Chris

Tyler

Myles

Joe was the first to drive the car.

After Joe's drive, modifications had to be made to the car. Mr. Harris and Myles inflated a tire.

Mr. Harris cut away part of the lower body which was restricting the wheel as it turned. Below is a photo showing the lower portion intact and the photo that follows shows him cutting away the infringed piece.

Once the car was good to go, each driver took a turn. Drivers went around a slalom course and if asked had to stop the car abruptly and evacuate it within 15 seconds.  The judges allowed the canopy to be removed for the slalom.

Here are a few of the team members reviewing the rules and listening to a judge.

It was interesting to see some of the other cars. There are fourteen cars in the race. There are two in our division (advanced), they are both from New York,  Ulster BOCES Career & Tech and a school from Staten Island. All of the cars were assigned a bay in the pit area of the race track which was shaded and had a steady cross breeze. However, by mid-afternoon everyone was tired of the heat. Below are a few of the cars.

One of the stations was tilt. The car had to be tilted 20° and the suspension examined. Here you can see the upper body removed and two of the judges examining the car while Brittany, Chris, and Tyler look on.

One of the stations was braking. Nick drove the car and had to reach a speed of 15mph and then abruptly brake. The two videos below show this.




The team from Staten Island has a similar car to ours. Both shells were designed at MIT, but the frames and interior vary. The first photo below shows their car and the second photo shows both of them together.
Tomorrow is another early day. Students will have until 5:00pm to make adjustments required by judges. They will also complete the last station, which is endurance, and involves driving around the Texas Motorway Track.